


Sly

by aderyn



Series: Deep Map [19]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Episode: s01e03 The Great Game, Episode: s02e03 The Reichenbach Fall, Running from Reichenbach, clever boys, sort of a fable
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-23
Updated: 2013-05-23
Packaged: 2017-12-12 17:37:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/814192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aderyn/pseuds/aderyn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"There was a fox in the National Portrait Gallery," Sherlock says.</p>
<p>There’s something so sweet in the aftermath of cleverness.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sly

**Author's Note:**

> This is for [ BlackMorgan](http://archiveofourown.org/users/BlackMorgan/pseuds/BlackMorgan), with thanks.

_“…you are still warmer than the moonlight gleaming on you_

_even now you are unharmed even now perfect_

_as you have always been now when your light paws are running_

_on the breathless night on the bridge with one end I remember you…”—W.S. Merwin, The Vixen_

 

When Sherlock was a child, he freed a fox, a russet heap with teeth, from a trap, got a nip for his trouble, a trip to A & E, a scar like a bracelet of pearls, teeth John has traced.

_You let him go._

*******

“There was a fox in the National Portrait Gallery,” Sherlock says, rustles the paper like last leaves.

Ah, John thinks.                                                  

Like you they live to be clever. Work at night, disappear in short barks, tote sharp things in their moonlit jaws.

Well.

You: blink like a bird, move lightly on two feet (on four? Who knows. You move and the city doesn’t see, because what sees its shadow, its spirit, its soul?)

*******

There was a case. It’s Sunday now.

Here, John says. It’s Sunday. Bells. Last night’s accidents. Spills. Here, John says. Sulks. No place to buy cigarettes. There’s something so sweet in the aftermath of cleverness. An open book an open window an open laptop, the stiff brush of autumn or spring. Rose hips and ash and cherry and musk, a confirmed bachelor sort of scent on the wind; but no, nothing confirmed except this is sweet.

They’ve slipped free as they will, gone to ground in their own shadow where the only thing that can keep them is them.

*******

“That bastard,” John says, and he means the murderer, means thieving and grinning and preying and rending.

“John,” Sherlock says, “I haven’t said so, but I’m glad …”

“You’ve said so,” John says.

It’s in the high registers, prick-eared, nocturnal--

London is full, isn’t it, of dens of the missable, the little feet, the world under.

Blink and you miss it.

You don’t want to miss it.

*******

The foxes of London eat garbage, lap tea- cream left for the faeries in the weak dawn.

The foxes of Baker take it black.

“He’s not a beast,” says Sherlock, “he’s a man. “ He means the skulk who threatened to steal his heart, or no, to set it afire, and what did that mean.

“Yes,” John says, “does that make it worse?” If Sherlock is afraid he won’t say. If Sherlock is alone he won’t say. If Sherlock is in love he won’t say.   

He blinks.

Look at you, a whole earth of you.

So, John thinks, what you see out of the corner of your eye, when you look at it slant, the lightfoot things in your face, that must be the truth.

*******

_Clever boy, you can’t trap a shadow._

_You let him go._

When Sherlock was a child … oh, a wound, a bracelet like sugared grapes, a bitterness at the bark, the leap, the russet heap of your heart.

Let’s agree, John thinks. Always.

Follow me; I’ll follow you.  I’ll look over, say, _let’s give them the slip then_. All of them. Let’s disappear; we can do.

It’s a trick. Let’s go.

Let’s slip between the gates then, the fences, the sideyards; touch the ghosts of the old groves, scent the wind, _run_ , unlock the cells, snap the cuffs; disappear before the day.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> For dark fairytale Mr. Fox (gorgeous), [wiggleofjudas, Stumbleine](http://archiveofourown.org/works/774511/chapters/1454976)  
> [Video: Fox in the National Portrait Gallery](http://www.artangel.org.uk//projects/2005/seven_walks/video_the_nightwatch/video_the_nightwatch)  
> [The foxes of London](http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/05/foxes-london.html)  
> [Fox, in Welsh, llwynog ,from llwyn, “bush, grove”](http://www.princeton.edu/~achaney/tmve/wiki100k/docs/Fox.html)


End file.
